Setting up a new company file

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QuickBooks Pro allows you to easily create a new company file, and will even walk you through the setup process. There are different methods to set up your company, from an Express Start to an Advanced Setup option. Learn more about setting up a new company file in this step-by-step QuickBooks Pro video tutorial.

It's very easy to get started in QuickBooks.QuickBooks will walk you through many of thefirst crucial steps to setting up your company file.From the No Company Open screen, choose Create a New Company.This is going to bring you to the interview process.Now, you can click the blue Express Start buttonto get signed up right away, but I'm going to clickAdvanced Setup, because this is going to guide you, step bystep, through the entire process of creating a company file.So, let's click Advanced Setup.And the first thing that you need to put in is your company name.

Now, this can be your company name and thenthe legal name can be what's on your tax forms.Such as, if you use a DBA, which is a Doing Business As.In this case, our company is Two Trees Olive Oil.Now, here's where you put in your tax ID.So, if you're a corporation, thenyou'll have a Federal Employer Identification Number.If your business is just you, and youdon't have anything official set up, then you're considered a soleproprietorship, and your tax ID would be your Social Security Number.You can put in as much or as little asyou want, here the only thing that you need to knowis that if it has a star next to it,it's a required field, so you'd have to put that in.

Click the blue Next button when you're on set.Here's where you add your industry.Now what this does is it tells QuickBooks what kind of businessyou have so, QuickBooks can recommend some basic chart of accounts for you.Now, we'll go over those later.And if you can scroll through the list andfind something that fits your business that's great, butif can't, don't worry at the very bottom ofthe screen, there's a General Product-Based Business option andGeneral Service-Based Business.In this case I am going to click General Product-Based Business, because I amOlive Oil company and do sell bottles of Olive Oil which is a product.

However don't worry if you do both, becausethere are some services that we are going toset up such as tasting parties, so you'llstill get the opportunity to set up your service.Click the blue Next button when you've chosen your industry.Here's where you decide what kind of companyyou are such as a corporation or an s-corp or a sole proprietorship, or a non-profit.Now, this is important because QuickBooks can file andfill out a lot of tax forms for you.And it's important that these are the right forms.So, if you aren't sure what kind of a legal entityyou are, you can consult with a lawyer or your accountant.

In this case I'm going to selectSole Proprietorship, click the blue Next button.Now, you can choose when your fiscalyear starts.In this case I'll choose the default of January but if for some reasonyou need to choose a different date you can choose it from the dropdown.Click the blue Next button.Here's where you can put in a password for your QuickBooks company file.This means it'll set up the administrator account as a user andyou'll be required to put in this password when you start QuickBooks.Now, you don't have to, and for thiscourse, in case I close and open up QuickBookslater, I'm not going to.

But it's definitely strongly recommended thatyou password protect your QuickBooks file.To not use a password, which again is not recommended youcan just leave this blank and click the blue Next button.We are going to be going over how to set upusers in the later videos so don't worry about that either.Now, it's time to actually create the physical QuickBooks company file.Let's click Next and we will be prompted where wewant to save the file and what we want to call it.I'm going to save it to my desktop, although this is a browse dialog boxso, you could use the Pulldown menu and choose somewhere else to save it.

You can also change the file name.It's going to default the name of your company.You could change it if you wanted to.When you're ready, click Save.And QuickBooks is going to make your company file.You'll see that it doesn't take long at all.So, now you need to answer some basic questions aboutyour business, so that QuickBooks can create a nice home screen.So that you don't look at anything you don't want to use.I'll click the blue Next button.So, now it's asking what you sell.Such as products, which are physical, tangible things.Or services, like lawn mowing and consulting.

In this case, we provide both services and products.Click the blue Next button, here is a simple Yes or No whetheryou charge sales tax for your products and also do you create estimates.If you don'tcreate estimates and you don't even want to look at thatoption on your home screen you could just choose No.In this case, I'll choose Yes, it'll also ask you if you choose BillingStatements which is quarterly or optional statementsthat you want to send to your clients.I 'm going to go over how to do statements in a later chapter, so I will choose Yes.Click the blue Next button and again you choose whether you use progress invoicing.

Progress invoicing can be very useful, so I'mgoing to turn this on so I can show you in a later video.Also, you keep track of bills inQuickBooks such as bills that you pay vendors.Click Next.I'm going to turn on Tracking Inventory in QuickBooks because I want to showyou how to do it when we start setting up our items.Click Next. Also, do you want to track time?So, tracking time can help you bill customersfor how long you spend on certain projects.It can also help you pay any hourly employees.So, we'll turn on Time Tracking. Click Next.

Do you have employees?Now, I'm going to be showing you how to set up employees.So, I'll say yes, I have W2'd employees.And I also have contractors that I'll be sending 1099 formstoo, I'll be going over all of that in later videos.Click Next.Now, here is where we are going to set up our chart of account.These are all our accounts that containour incoming accounts, expenses accounts and otherthings that let us know where we're getting ourmoney from, and where our outgoing money is going towards.Click Next.And, here's where we start choosing a date to track your finances.

Now, this is a very important date because, once you enter the startdate for a company, QuickBooks doesn't want you to be able to change it.Now, this is an arbitrary date that simply exists so that youcan line it up with your opening balances for all of your accounts.That's what'sreally important.Your transactions start being line-itemed as ofthe date you tell QuickBooks you're in business.Anything before that is considered having an existing balanceso, you'll need to know what those balances are.For example, if you've been doing business for a whileand you already have a business bank account, then you needto know what that current balance is for the bankaccount, as of the date that you say your company started.

You'll also need to be aware of what and howmany open invoices you may have already been sending to your customers.May be you've created those invoices using a word processingdocument and you've been doing it manually up until now.It's important to note all the openingbalances for your customers and bank accounts.So, in this case you could choose the beginningof the year but you could putting your own date.I'll click this button and I'm going to say thatmy business has been in business since August 8th.Click Next, and here's where we can reviewsome Income and Expense accounts.

Now, these are ones that QuickBooks has already set upfor us based on what we said our industry was.You don't have to use any of the ones that it selected.In fact, if you don't want to resale items,you can uncheck this, and you can add more.For example, if you have business licenses and permits asbusiness expenses, you can place a checkbox next to this.So, you can scroll through this list and decide what youwant as an expense account or as an income account.For example, if I print flyers a lot for my customers, such as brochures.

I might want to add this account. This Pinting and Reproduction account.Is an Expense account.So, when I line item that expense from my business bankaccount, I can match it up to a printing and reproduction expense.So, take some time, go through, choose some accounts,and when you're all done, click the blue Next button.It's very important to know that noneof these Expense accounts are written in stone.You can hide them, make them inactive, and add more at any time.So, now that we're all done, let's click the blue Goto Setup button, and we'll be continuing with creating our accounts.

So, we've got a company file.It will bring you to this screen, but I'm going to show you thatyou can just close out of this and start using QuickBooks right away.Let's click the X in the very top right-hand side to close outof the QuickBooks setup screen.We're brought to that home screen I showed you in a previous video.I can see up at the top we're in our Two Trees Olive Oil company.And now we're all set up and ready to go.So, in leader videos, I'm going to show you how to add all those accounts that itwanted you to set up such as abank account, chart of accounts and adding inventory items.So, let's get started with those.

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11/19/2013

You don't need to be an accountant to know how to use QuickBooks Pro. Learn how to manage the finances for your small business yourself with the Windows version of this powerful accounting package. Jess Stratton shows how to create a new company file and back it up on a regular basis, and then set up accounts, taxes, and inventory items. Once your accounts are established, learn how to create estimates and purchase orders, send invoices, receive payments, and print checks—all the day-to-day tasks that keep your business running. Finally, learn to set up your payroll, integrate with online banking, find data and run reports, and close the books with end-of-year preparations.